A linguistic melting pot

As previously discussed, Americans love to use a foreign word and to pronounce it in as foreign a way of possible. Like the way they pronounce envoy 'on-voy'. Maybe it's because they are a nation of immigrants. Maybe it's because they have a New World inferiority complex, albeit thinly masked with virulent patriotism. As a rule if it sounds a bit Euro it sounds a bit classier. Not my rule, theirs. 

The melting pot culture of this nation of immigrants gives them license to adopt words from wherever they choose and with no consistency. Hence the adoption of French 'bleu' cheese, and the use of endive (instead of chicory). They went with the Italian zucchini instead of courgette, and Spanish cilantro for coriander. So far, so confusing but its their prerogative to appropriate as they wish. And for the most part we can all navigate and translate our way around the ragbag. 

My theory is that the Ahmanson Theatre and the Center Theatre Group spell themselves the British way  to distinguish their productions from those low brow, populist ones in other theaters. Although they're fine being associated with a standard American Center. 

If they're not careful, people will just think they are misspelling it. 

A visit from P's Godfather

We love our guests. We love the solo travelers and the parties of six, and all the sizes in between. We love the people who stay for a night, and those who move in for a fortnight. We love the ones who are here to sightsee and the ones who are here to do nothing at all. We love them whether they came from the other side of the state, or the country, or the Atlantic.

There are no prizes, no winners and no losers. I am always grateful to have time with family and old friends. TLOML is always glad of an excuse to fix someone an old fashioned. And P always welcomes extra storytellers and puzzle makers.

That said... perhaps special mention should go to the guest who, after his ten hour flight from Tokyo, was at the gym with me within half an hour of arriving. Who provided the perfect reason to dodge work and visit LACMA for a couple of hours, and to spend Saturday night at the Hollywood Bowl singing along to Grease (because let's face it, great though that venue is, you do need an extra push to face the schlep up there). And aside from the excellent LA cultural jaunts, just fit right into my workout, taco and beach routine for ten days.

Best of all - as well as reading her endless stories, he willingly joined P's yoga session.

We are now bereft of guests for the rest of the month, before we head to the UK to be someone else's guests for a couple of weeks. But when we get back we have two families visiting in quick succession. I don't think they'll quite share P's Godfather's commitment to Crossfit Horsepower. But hopefully they'll catalyze some good sightseeing (I've STILL never been to Griffith Park) balanced by plenty of lazy afternoons at the beach.

Nailing the Fourth of July

I love the Fourth of July. It took me a while to get used to the flagrant patriotism. I know that's the point of the Fourth of July, but the sheer volume of stars and stripes still surprised me. I'm from a generation of Brits who are raised to be slightly embarrassed about our nation's past. With the exception of skinheads and everyone during a world cup, we don't fly our flag quite proudly. 

But if the idea of a day of national pride and the preponderance of patriotic outfits took me aback at first, it didn't take long before I was decking P out in red white and blue and asking friends what they were doing for the Fourth.

Having said all that, this year we didn't quite join the party. The last couple of years we went to a workout buddy's massive beach party, but he switched gyms, and now I haven't seen him since the last Fourth of July, so the ratio of catching up with him vs making small talk with hardbodies I don't know from Adam is all out of whack. We could have joined our good friends' block party, for a more wholesome option. That'd  be fun, but it's not our block and our neighbours, after all. We could have gone to a party in Silverlake, but who wants to drive for an hour on the Fourth of July?

It turns out we didn't want, or need to drive anywhere.

Instead we made the most of a day off in the middle of the week the best way we know how. An early surf for TLOML, and a run for me, and then we wore our smuggest smiles down to the beach. It was crazy busy but we found a quiet patch with space for P to dig in the sand while we did very little. 

TLOML body surfed for ages, and not to be outdone, I took my first - very brief - ocean swim of the year.  P collected about a hundred shells. We enjoyed some late afternoon margaritas and burgers on our deck with a couple of friends, and fell into bed feeling sun kissed and tipsy by 10pm.

It's no pool party, but I think we may have found the perfect way to celebrate America's birthday.